


An Empty Dream

by antevasin



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Homesickness, Returning Home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:01:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23269618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antevasin/pseuds/antevasin
Summary: "Home is an empty dream, lost to the night."- Endless Night (The Lion King)
Relationships: Kathryn Janeway & Harry Kim
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	An Empty Dream

**Author's Note:**

> On the tenth day of self-isolation, I decided it was time to post this story.  
> It's actually been written a few months ago, but I thought of it again recently, so here you go. Enjoy!

"Home is an empty dream, lost to the night."  
\- Endless Night (The Lion King)  


* * *

The tiny details had become the most apparent difference. Small things he would never have noticed before. Like the way the sun illuminated his parents' wedding picture on the wall when she rose, right at the time he would usually arrive on his days off. He had always taken the very first transport from the Campus. To make the most of those days.

His mother had asked what he had wanted for breakfast every time, and every time he had said he was fine with anything. Yet she had always woken up early to make him something special. She had even learnt how to cook foreign dishes they offered at the Academy, which he had once enthusiastically talked about. Regardless of what the dark, golden-rimmed bowls on the table were filled with, the house had always been filled with the perfume of fresh, homemade food.

Or the table. It seemed so low. Starfleet tables were standardized in height, and when he stood next to one, they reached above his belly button. The kitchen table at home only barely reached his hips. He was mesmerized by how familiar the measurements of a piece of furniture seemed. His eyes ran across every detail. Had he remembered everything correctly? He was not sure. But it felt right.

At least on the surface. When he tried hard enough to indulge in what was no better than a memory. The familiarity of the room hurt on a subconscious level. Everything looked, smelt, felt just like home. But it was not.

Taking one deep breath after the other, unsuccessfully attempting to calm himself down, he resorted to biting his lips and staring forcefully at the ceiling to keep the tears at bay. It was almost like this place made it worse. The accuracy.

Everything suggested to him that his parents were about to appear in one of the doorframes, ready to embrace him and whisper how much they had missed him. And he would smile, composed, level-headed, the epitome of a cadet, and return the hug in a way that said the same, but with a little emotional distance, without the raw emotion his parents felt. Now that emotion had caught on to him as well.

He found himself wandering through the familiar rooms, inhaling every angle, every emotion associated with this place. It still felt like home. And yet, there was another place he was beginning to call the same.

That disturbed him the most of all. Where was home? Was it this house, filled with memorabilia of his parents, his childhood? Or was it slowly replaced by the sharp rectangles, the sterile corridors, the cramped loneliness of this ship? 

After nearly two months, he was no longer getting lost on his way to places he seldom visited. He knew which food to order from the replicators, and when it was safe to rely on Neelix's recipes. His new uniform was beginning to feel comfortable.

And when he decided to indulge in the illusion of Home for a while, leaving his quarters felt like leaving home too.

He was floating in between, not sure which of these places to call Home, or whether they both could be, or whether it mattered at all. But it did. For every time he came here, and every time he prepared to leave again, he struggled to avoid the tears. And every time he entered his quarters, a wave of relief flooded him, yet sometimes a look out of the window was all he needed to feel alienated.

Sighing, he finally settled on spending the night in this house. Just once, he promised quietly. Just this time.

As he lay in bed, he stared blankly into the dark room, seeing nothing, but remembering everything. Swallowing hard, he tried to let himself fall into the illusion. But in the back of his head, the knowledge of what it truly was gnawed at the rope of this anchor. Slowly, tears began to trickle down his cheeks, seeping into the soft bedsheets with their familiar smell as he drifted into an uneasy sleep, rife with memories of places he could not go and people he could not see.

A knock on the door woke him. "I'm awake," he yelled back sleepily. For just a moment, still toeing the line between reality, sleep and illusion, he just assumed it was his mother. Why was she coming to wake him? Had his alarm not gone off, did he sleep in? When did he have to leave? Would he be late for his Stellar Cartography class? Or for Academy band practice?

Like the shock of being hit by a subspace anomaly, the sudden realization that this was part of another life, another time, another him knocked him down.

He had graduated Stellar Cartography with an A-. The last time he had played in Starfleet Academy's jazz band was at his own graduation ceremony. He had not seen his mother in two months. And his parents' house was nothing more than a holodeck simulation.

So who was at the door then?

A face peered through the opening, displaying a concerned yet also somewhat amused expression.

"Captain, I-" He jumped out of bed, standing straight, even though it probably looked ridiculous in pyjama pants. "Am I late for duty?"

"As a matter of fact, you are, Ensign," she replied. "But I'll let that slide for now. That's quite an impressive holoprogramme you made yourself here," she continued leisurely, "I shouldn't be surprised you'd prefer this to sleeping in your quarters." Her voice did not seem accusing, but her eyes seeped right through his skin, scanning him like a spatial anomaly.

"Is everything alright, Harry?"

She sounded gentler now, more like his Interstellar Relations teacher at the academy - an old Trill that probably every student had visited at some time due to a problem that had absolutely nothing to do with her subject, just because they listened and never hesitated to spend time and effort on finding solutions and giving advice. Janeway was much younger, but the aura she gave off was similar. Caring. Maternal. He sighed.

"I just miss home."

She placed a hand on his shoulder. "We all do," she murmured, her eyes staring off into the distance that they both knew hid behind the walls of the holodeck. "And that's probably normal in our situation." Her laughter was tainted with bitter sarcasm. "Assuming there is a 'normal' for … this, of course."

He nodded. His throat closed up, and he was not sure whether he could speak without breaking out in tears. That was not something he wanted to risk in front of his commanding officer.

"For the time being," she added, "perhaps the best you can do is try to make yourself at home here." Even though her gesture merely enclosed the simulated bedroom in his parent's home, he knew that by 'here', she meant Voyager.  


* * *

Harry Kim stood in the doorframe of his quarters, his eyes glancing across the room. His personal belongings were all neatly packed up in two Starfleet-issue shoulder bags that just could not fill the void in the middle of the room. There was an empty shelf where he had removed the pictures of his family. An empty wall where the screen displaying their position and the distance to Earth in a slowly filling map had been. An empty corner where his clarinet had been securely wrapped in a case.

This was the last place he was visiting. He had already been to the holodeck, the mess hall, the bridge. With every new memory resurfacing swallowing had become a little harder. Now it was almost impossible.

Steps drew closer, and he turned around. He hastily tried to slip through the door, but the Captain had already spotted him. "Taking a last look around?," she asked.

He nodded. A last look. The reality of her words struck him like a phaser blow, and his vision slowly blurred as tears filled his eyes. Janeway placed a hand on his shoulder.

"I'm glad to be back with my family," he explained through the milk glass curtain now separating his vision from the place he had called his home for the past seven years. "But somehow… This feels like leaving home all over again."

**Author's Note:**

> Since university has been moved to online, I have been moved back to my parents yesterday. While I probably wrote this piece in winter break, I relate to it even more right now.  
> Voyager has been a huge source of comfort when I first moved abroad, so I kind of channelled my own feelings about being far from home into Harry. The ending part then came about once I had found my place, and coming back to my family in a way felt "like leaving home all over again"...
> 
> This is my first piece for Voyager - or anything else than DS9 - so feedback would be very much welcome!


End file.
